


homin | silence & teddy bears

by plincess_cho (ai_hao)



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9629807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_hao/pseuds/plincess_cho
Summary: Yunho comes back to find Changmin asleep on the couch.





	

Yunho lumbers down the hallway to the DBSK dormitories, feeling properly drunk. His cheeks are flushed strawberry-red and his head feels fuzzy. He weaves a bit down the corridor, leaning against the wall for balance. Before, he would have been appalled to find himself in this condition, but now, he can't bring himself to care. He's already lost everything; why not throw his dignity out with it?

He shoves his key into the lock to the dorms he used to share with four other boys. He pushes open the door and sighs to himself. This place doesn't feel like home anymore, and Yunho doesn't think it ever will again. This was where the five of them celebrated winning awards, where they shared late-night talks about the future they were creating together, where they moaned about sore muscles from too many late nights practicing. This dorm was where they had all promised to make brilliant memories together as DBSK.

But now, now it's empty. This place reminds Yunho of all that he lost the day the other three decided to walk out that door and never return. The rooms his former bandmates once occupied now mock him with their empty echoes of what will never be again. It's no wonder Yunho has been spending the majority of his time out with friends or blacked out on the couch in the Super Junior dorms. He wants to escape from this dorm, this town, and this new life. He wants to return to the way things were before this mess began.

Yunho drops his backpack to the floor with a resounding thunk and kicks his shoes into the pile by the door. He doesn't bother to put on house slippers, but instead drags himself into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge for something to eat. He pulls out some leftovers one of the aunties must have left for them and plunks the container down on the table. He scrounges for some chopsticks that may or may not be clean and dives into a pile of cold noodles and day-old veggies. He's hungry. He doesn't care.

He's surprised they still have food left in the fridge, to be honest. Most of the things left for them would disappear within hours, if not minutes of being deposited into the fridge. Anything Jaejoong made never even made it into the leftover containers; his dishes usually ended up in Changmin's stomach.

_Changmin..._

A pang of guilt hits Yunho. He hasn't talked with Changmin in days, and their last conversation can't even be considered a proper chat. Changmin hasn't left... yet. At least that's the way Yunho sees it. Sooner or later the company is going to realize that they can't salvage what the other three destroyed and will cut them loose. Maybe they'll let Yunho go solo or join the choreography team or something. But Changmin? Yunho laughs bitterly to himself. Changmin will probably leave.

But then a little voice in the back of his head reminds him that Changmin's still here. That Changmin promised he'd still be here. And that Shim Changmin is not one to back out on his promises.

Yunho puts down his container of noodles and sighs. He wants to be mad at Changmin because Changmin is here to be mad at. The other three vanished without time for Yunho to even muster up a retort. He wants Changmin to leave so he can complete his cycle of hating the world so he can save himself from the self loathing that keeps threating to reappear. It's not his fault that they left. Deep down, he knows this, but in the midst of everything else, it's easiest to wallow in that. After all, if he hates himself, the hatred of everyone out there railing on him and Changmin won't be so abrasive, right?

 _Where is Changmin?_ Yunho wonders to himself, the buzz of alcohol starting to fade. He guesses Changmin is over at Kyuhyun's, holed up in his room drinking and playing video games. Yunho thinks that's good. It's safe for him there. Leeteuk and Donghae assure him of that much every time they drag Yunho's drunk ass back to his own dorm to sleep off a hangover.

Yunho gets up from the kitchen table and idly wanders into the living room, presumably to find the television remote and find something to distract him from his introspection. Instead, he finds Changmin fast asleep on the couch, curled up into the fetal position with one of Yunho's teddy bears clutched in his arms.

"You're here," Yunho says, his voice too loud.

Changmin stirs in his sleep and opens two bleary eyes to look up at Yunho. "You're home," he mumbles.

"What are you doing on the couch?" Yunho asks. He tries to soften his voice but knows he's failing.

"Wanted to make sure you got home safe," Changmin replies.

Something inside Yunho melts and as he watches Changmin rubbing at his bloodshot eyes, he realizes that he's not the only one who has suffered during this time.

And he's not the only one who has been suffering alone.

"Thanks," he says, lost for words. "I'm... home." The words come out awkwardly.

"Soup for you on the stove," Changmin mumbles. He drags himself off the couch and motions towards the kitchen. "No hangover."

Yunho nods his thanks and watches as Changmin stumbles down the hallway to his room. He walks over and realizes the pot on the stove is full of the miracle hangover cure Changmin's mother always sent him home with after a night of drinking.

Maybe... maybe his life isn't as empty as it seems to be.

And at that moment, Yunho realizes he needs to pull it together, for the both of them. He can't keep living in this alcoholic haze, waiting for something to happen. He's never been one to wait around for the fates to align, and now he realizes that more than ever he needs to start creating his own destiny once more. For himself. And for Changmin.

Yunho drinks his soup while sitting on the couch watching TV. His stuffed bear sits up next to him, watching right along with him. Yunho sets the bowl down on the coffee table and sets the bear in his lap, looking straight into his eyes.

"We need to take good care of Changmin," he informs the bear.

In Yunho's mind, the bear seems to agree.

*

Yunho wakes up the next morning to the smell of something simmering on the stove. He stands up and stretches, his body sore from where he fell asleep on the couch. He yawns and picks his teddy bear up from where it had fallen onto the couch. Holding it in the crook of his elbow, he walks over to the kitchen to find Changmin stirring at a pot of something.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," Changmin replies.

"I'm sorry," Yunho says. And he means it. He's sorry for everything: for this whole situation, for his lack of consideration, for not realizing that Changmin had been there the entire time.

"It's fine," Changmin says. And that's the end of the discussion.

*

"But I realized that Changmin was there beside me, silently giving me strength," Changmin hears Yunho tell the interviewer years later. Changmin's ears turn bright red and he tries to flatten his hair over them to hide his embarrassment. The girls interviewing them both give an "aww" that makes Changmin's entire face turn crimson.

They'd never discussed that night, but he remembers it well. He'd gotten home from the Super Junior dorms early because Kyuhyun had other schedules to attend to, but he hadn't been able to sleep. His anxiety had kept him awake until finally he'd resolved to wait until Yunho got home. He remembers finally falling into a fitful sleep until Yunho awakened him, inquiring what the hell he was sleeping on the couch.

Yunho had changed after that night. He stopped spending his nights drunk and his days hungover and instead finally started talking to Changmin. About the split, about the future, about where to go now. Changmin had nodded his agreement and promised that they would make their future shine bright again, despite all that had happened.

And they had.

They finish filming and the staff direct the boys towards the buffet they've set up before starting the stage walk through for their show tomorrow. Yunho slings his arm around Changmin's shoulders while they're standing in line to eat. "Ready for tomorrow?"

Changmin nods. He grabs two plates from the stack and hands one to Yunho. "I'm ready."

*

They stand onstage together at the end of the concert the next night, chests heaving from the exertion and the energy from the night. The two of them look out at the sea of red and can't help but smile.

"Changmin!" Yunho yells into Changmin's ear, his microphone turned off. "Thanks for not giving up!"

Changmin leans over and yells back, "I'm with you to the end, hyung!"

The lights dim as they take their final bow onstage. Yunho squeezes Changmin's hand tightly and thinks about that night, all those years ago, when he decided never to give up.

It was totally worth it.


End file.
